Is this the worst sports column ever written?

John Steigerwald of the Observer-Reporter in Washington, Pa., knows who’s to blame for the near-fatal beating of a San Francisco Giants fan outside Dodger Stadium last week – obviously, it’s the adult victim who was silly enough to wear a Giants jersey on Dodger turf.

In what could go down as the most infuriating, backward-thinking opining ever seen in a sports column, Steigerwald on Sunday blamed Bryan Stow for putting himself in harms way by failing to “grow up” and leave his jersey at home.

That’s Bryan Stow of Santa Cruz.

Or as Steigerwald calls him under the headline “Know when you’ve outgrow the uniform” (sic), Bryan Snow of Sacramento.

Maybe someone can ask Snow, if he ever comes out of his coma, why he thought it was a good idea to wear Giants’ gear to a Dodgers’ home opener when there was a history of out-of-control drunkenness and arrests at that event going back several years.

Remember when it was the kids who were wearing the team jerseys to games? It was a common sight to see an adult male coming through the turnstile dressed as a regular human being with a kid dressed in a “real” jersey holding his hand.

Cute.

The column was later changed to correct the spelling of the victim’s name (but not his hometown or the typo in the headline), but that didn’t make the opinion any less wrong.

Steigerwald tries to make the point that adults wearing the jerseys of their favorite clubs have a false sense of being part of the team. He’s certainly entitled to that opinion.